Palliative care is interdisciplinary care (medicine, nursing, social work, chaplaincy, etc.) focused on improving quality of life for persons of any age living with any serious illness, and for their families. (Hospice care is similar, but only provided during the last months of life). We congratulate The Steward Center for Palliative Care on their pioneering work and on being a state and national leader in this field for over a decade! In addition to caring for clients at three outpatient clinics (housed in the Lewis Cancer & Research Pavilion at St. Joseph's/Candler, at the Anderson Cancer Institute at Memorial Health University Medical Center and at St. Mary's Health Center) the doctors and nurse practitioners also see patients throughout the three Savannah hospitals and are excited to extend their services to Landmark Hospital of Savannah this month.

Friends and supporters are warmly invited to attend the official opening of the Celeste C. and Robert H. Demere, Jr. Center for Living which houses our community-funded programs - Full Circle grief and loss counseling, The Steward Center for Palliative Care, our new Edel Caregiver Institute as well as our Foundation staff. Mark your calendars for the official ribbon cutting on Friday, September 25 at 11 a.m. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Leisa Easom, Executive Director of the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving.

The new Edel Caregiver Institute will offer classes and support groups to family caregivers of all kinds. We liked this letter by VA Congressmen J. Randy Forbes, recently published in the Suffolk News Herald, for its practical, no-nonsense tone. As he says, "without a plan, it's easy for your parent or loved one's day-to-day care needs to become overwhelming."

We are closing in our goal of $40,000 in support of the Daily Impact Fund, helping to provide the many "extra" services we offer to our patients and their families. We thank everyone who generously hosted a party on our behalf, and to the many guests who donated or attended. Read the complete list of hosts here. Pictured is Families First president and Camp Aloha volunteer Kyle Nikola at his luau-themed party.

We are grateful to everyone who remembers their loved ones through a memorial gift to Hospice Savannah. Read the names of those remembered during August.

As if she weren't busy enough, our Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kelly Erola has been named the next chair of the Chatham County Board of Health. Kelly is on the faculty of both Mercer University School of Medicine, Savannah Campus, and the Medical College of Georgia's SE Regional Campus, and chairs the palliative care working group for Georgia's Cancer Control Consortium where she is in the process of developing a statewide network of palliative care programs and pushing legislation to form a Palliative Care Advisory Committee. We appreciate Kelly's commitment to our community, her leadership and passion, and her dedication to our core values of excellence, accountability, compassion, teamwork and stewardship.

We are grateful to USI Insurance Services for presenting the 2015 Hospice Savannah Golf Tournament at The Landings Club's Plantation Course. The tournament is on Monday, September 28 with a 1:15 p.m. shotgun start.   Click here to download a PDF with sponsorship and registration information.  Please return to Amber Lee at USI Insurance Services, 7 E. Congress St., Savannah, 31401 or scan to amber.lee@usi.biz.

Here's a useful blog  that may resonate with you. Writer Carol Bradley Bursack believes that while calling in hospice for the care of a loved one means coming to terms, on all levels, with the idea that this person is dying, it also means taking action and being in a position to offer tangible help. There is always more that can be done. And as our families often tell us, "We wish we'd called earlier!"